


Face Masks And Nail Polish

by Kosmicknife



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Retail, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 05:23:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20483561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kosmicknife/pseuds/Kosmicknife
Summary: Lance works at Lush and Keith works at the Hot Topic across the mall from Lance





	Face Masks And Nail Polish

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first half of this last summer and just finished it yesterday and it’s kinda hot cliche garbage but still enjoy!!
> 
> My twitter is @kosmicknife so follow me there too!

The music was especially loud in the store that day. Today was Pidge’s turn pick the music and it wasn’t exactly Keith’s style. Too electronic. Keith rearranged the little displays at the register to kill some time before his shift was over. He fiddled with the products at the registered when a movement across the mall caught his eye.

He saw a flash of tan skin and brown hair in the Lush store. Keith watched the worker restoke the bath bombs at the front of the store with a smile. Keith knew he was a semi-recent hire over there because he hadn’t seen him there in the 7 months working at Hot Topic. Keith would be lying if he said that he hadn’t been a little intrigued when the boy began working there. He always walked into work and left with a bright smile on his face and Keith honestly couldn’t understand how he did it. Only a couple of hours in Hot Topic made Keith want to never have to work with people again.

“Yo Keith!” A voice yelled from the back.

“What is it, Pidge?” Keith asked without looking away.

“Do you want me to put out this new box of t-shirts?”

“Sure,” Keith responded only half listening. The Lush employee had just laughed loudly at something his coworker said. The sound of it floated through the mall above the other chatter and rang in Keith’s ears. _He has a really nice laugh _Keith thought.

“Earth to Keith?” Pidge asked waving a hand in front of his face.

“What Pidge?” Keith asked snapping his eyes away from the Lush storefront.

“You can stare at that guy later. I need some help moving this box of shirts. It’s basically the size of me.”

Keith cleared his through and felt his face flush a little. He moved from behind the register to help. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, Pidge. I’ll come help.”

Lance absolutely loved his new job. He’d only been there a few weeks, but he was enjoying himself so far. It helped that his coworkers were Allura and Hunk. They’d played a big part in helping him land the job. Today Allura had asked him to restoke the bath bombs and that gave Lane a chance to see some of the new ones he might be spending his paycheck on. Lance was also loving the employee discount that came with the job as well.

Lance started restoking the display at the front of the store while his coworkers helped a few customers. Since they were both busy this gave him a chance to sneak a peek at one of the other small perks of his job. Normally Lance wasn’t into the whole “rough around the edges” look, but Lance would gladly make an exception for this guy. His black hair was longer than average and even from a distance, it looked like it would be soft to the touch. His sleeves covered a few, but Lance could tell both (large) biceps were decorated in some tattoos that Lance desperately wanted to see up close. The Hot Topic employee tended to wear a simple black tee and jeans while decorating his face with an eyebrow piercing. Lance only new a few of these smaller details because he might have walked past the store a few times to get a closer look at the guy. It’s not his fault he was weak when it came to pretty people

Lance, still sure to only peek back skillfully to attempt to avoid detection, used this chance to examine the boy yet again. He seemed to be manning the register with a rather indifferent expression on his face. Lance continued to admire the employees striking and built appearance from where he stood to restock. The boy's eyes flashed towards Lance’s store and Lance quickly looked away. Just as he did, he heard the sound of someone’s throat clearing behind him. Lance startled slightly, nearly dropping his box of bath bombs, and looked up to see Hunk watching him.

“Whatcha lookin at buddy?”

“Oh Nothing,” Lance said moving his attention back to the bath bombs with his face feeling significantly warmer.

“You know you could try talking to him,” Hunk suggested.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about, Hunk. I’m just doing my job,” Lance huffed out.

“Dude you’re more obvious than Allura is when that girl Romelle comes in.”

Lance couldn’t help but laugh at that. He could only imagine how bad his staring must be after how he’s seen Allura react when Romelle comes in. Allura makes a complete fool of herself when the girl comes in. Last time Allura was so distracted she dropped a whole box of products on her own foot.

“Alright you caught me, I guess. But what can I say Hunk? He’s reeeeaaaally pretty,” Lance said glancing over his shoulder again and let out a small sigh. The Hot Topic guy walked away from the counter to help his coworker with a box of something.

“Dude just go talk to him. I’m sure he’s a cool guy and it wouldn’t hurt.”

“I don’t know Hunk. He’s kind of out of my league and definitely not my usual type,” Lance said while considering his friend's advice.

“So? You’ll never know what could happen unless you talk to him. Just go over on your break and see what happens,” Hunk urged.

Lance thought for a second. “Well… I guess you’ve got a point. Okay. I’ll go on my break.”

“Great! Did I mention that you’re taking your break right now?” Hunk said taking the box of bath bombs from Lance’s hands.

“Whoah. What?” Lance asked bewildered. “I haven’t had any time to plan out what to say!”

“Just wing it. Now go. You’ve only got fifteen minutes,” Hunk said while pushing him out of the store.

Pidge wasn’t kidding when she said the box was about the size of her. It took both of them just to move it near the t-shirt display. He began to help Pidge fold the shirts to put on the table when he heard someone come in the store.

He threw a quick glance behind him to toss out a quick customary retail employee greeting when it suddenly died in his throat at the realization of who entered. It was that one Lush employee.

“Oh, this should be fun to watch,” Pidge smirked. Keith shushed her quickly. She snickered. Keith watched the guy from lush glance around quickly. Keith had to admit that he looked slightly out of place in the store so he couldn’t imagine what he was shopping for. The boy walked further into the store still just looking around a lot. Keith took a deep breath to regain some composure and turned to head over to him to offer some help like any normal employee would.

“Good luck,” Pidge whispered as Keith walked away. Keith threw a glare in her direction and kept walking.

“Uh, hey can I help you find anything?”

Lance flinched a bit. He was hopeful he didn’t look so awkward shopping here.

“Nope!” Lance said a little too loudly. He looked around for something to browse while he thought of something to say to the guy. Lance didn’t exactly have much time to plan out what he might say to the guy. He turned and saw a small display of nail polish at the register and started looking at those. The guy walked up behind the register and began to busy himself behind the counter. Lance hoped his face wasn’t too red. Wait, was he even breathing? Did Lance forget how to breathe? He dug through the bottles of nail polish and tried to act a little more normal. His eyes flicked back up to the guy at the counter. He sat at the register with an unreadable look on his face. Lance saw his chance. Lance grabbed two colors of nail polish and held them up.

“So, what do you think? Should I go with the blue or red?” Lance asked the worker.

He turned to look and glanced at the bottles and back to Lance. “Uh… the blue one would look nice on you.”

Lance smiled. “Cool. I’ll take it.” Lance put the bottle at the register to let the guy ring him up.

The guy smiled slightly and began punching stuff into the register.

“Sooooo…” Lance glanced quickly at the workers' nametag. “Keith! Have you been working here long?”

The worker looked up. He brushed a piece of his hair back and replied, “Uh yeah. About 7 months now I think.”

“Do you like it here?”

“I mean it’s a pretty good job most of the time,” Keith answered. He placed Lance’s purchase in a small sack. “You just started at the Lush store across from here right?”

Lance’s heart did a little flip. The guy had noticed him before. “I did! My friends who work there got me the job.”

Keith handed the bag over to Lance. He leaned forward on the counter a bit, resting his elbow on the surface. “How do you like it so far?”

Lance grinned. “I love it! Working with my friends is great and so is the employee discount when I’d be spending most of my money there anyway,” he joked.

Keith chuckled. “Employee discounts are always good. Pidge over there can attest to that. She tends to just give her whole paycheck back to us. She likes the anime merch.”

Lance and Keith laughed. “I do the same thing at Lush. I’m a sucker for the face masks we have.”

“That’s pretty cool. I’ve never used a face mask. I always think it’d feel really weird,” Keith said scrunching his nose at the thought. Lance couldn’t help but thinking it was ridiculously adorable.

“I highly recommend them. They make your skin feel _amazing_. If you ever wanna stop by sometime, I could probably get you a good deal,” Lance offered with a wink tacked on at the end. He watched Keith’s face redden ever so slightly. Lance’s heart sped up seeing Keith’s reaction. This was going really well.

Keith ran a hand through his hair. “Uh… Yeah, that sounds good. I might take you up on that.”

“Awesome!” Lance beamed. He was about to turn to leave when Keith spoke again.

“So, if I went face mask shopping who would I ask for?” The boy asked while resting his chin on his hand on the counter.

Lance looked back at him confused. “Huh?”

“I never got your name,” Keith asked.

Lance blushed. He’d been talking with Keith this whole time and never bothered to introduce himself. He mentally scolded himself.

“Oh! Right. My name’s Lance. Ask for Lance if you don’t see me around.”

“Alright. Sounds like a plan, Lance,” Keith said with a bright smile. Lance hoped he’d get to see that smile some more.

“I’ll see ya around Keith!” Lance said and turned around to leave finally.

“See you,” Lance heard Keith say from behind.

Lance walked across the store back into his own. He couldn’t help but think Hunk was right and that it definitely didn’t hurt to go talk to cute Hot Topic employees.

Lance was stuck on register duty today. He sighed while resting against it. He watched his coworkers going around and tidying up the store. He was beginning to feel a little restless stuck behind the counter. There hadn’t been a lot of foot traffic in the store today for some reason. Lance turned around and started stacking the receipt paper rolls into a little tower to pass the time. Somewhere in the background of his brain, he heard Allura talking to a customer that must have just walked in. Lance had just one more roll to stack and then he’d turn around and do actual work.

“Hey, Lance.”

The voice from behind Lance startled him and he dropped his last roll and knocked a few others over in the process. He thought the customer was still with Allura at the front of the store.

Lance turned around to see none other than Keith. Lance’s heart started to speed up a little bit.

“Keith! You scared me AND made me ruin my tower,” Lance pouted slightly.

Keith chuckled and moved to get a peek at the mess behind Lance.

“Ah… Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Lance looked back at the mess and decided to worry about it later.

“Don’t worry about it! Are you here to look at those face masks I mentioned?” Lance asked.

“Yeah. You made them sound kinda cool. So, which one would you recommend?”

“Hmmm…” Lance thought. He leaned closer to Keith, “Let me get a good look at your skin really quick.”

Keith’s eyes widened as Lance leaned closer to his face. Lance wasn’t immune to the embarrassment of being all up in a cute boy’s face. He felt his cheeks redden a little. He just hoped Keith was oblivious.

After getting a good look Lance leaned back finally. Keith cleared his throat a little and ran a nervous hand through his hand as Lance leaned away. “You already have pretty decent skin for someone who’s never even used a face mask. Buuuut I think I know just the one for you. Follow me!”

Lance walked out from behind the counter and began to lead Keith across the store on a hunt for a new face mask.

Keith couldn’t believe he’s about to buy a face mask just to talk to Lance again. Pidge is probably laughing her ass off back at the store. Keith would never hear the end of this. He still thought it’d be worth Pidge’s snide comments. When Lance came in the store the other day Keith just had a really good time talking to him. Also, Keith wasn’t blind, Lance was really attractive.

“Here we are! This one should help soften the skin while also providing some great moisture,” Lance said as he presented a little jar to Keith. Keith smiled even though he had no idea why he needed moisture on his face.

“Sounds great. I’ll take it.”

“Awesome! I’ll ring you up.”

The two head back to the counter and Lance began to ring him up.

“Like I said I’ll make sure you get a good discount,” Lance said with a wink and a grin spread across his face. Keith knew his face was red at that. His stomach joined in on the fun and did a few backflips. _Okay, Keith_, he thought to himself. _After he rings you up would be a good time to ask him out_. Lance punched in some numbers while making some small talk and scanned the item. Keith halfheartedly responded. He was too distracted by the sound of his heart pounding in his ears from the nerves. Lance then told Keith the total.

Keith handed over some cash. His palms felt weirdly sweaty. He hoped Lance didn’t notice. _Just do it _Keith told himself.

“Uh Hey, Lance?” Lance looked up from counting the cash Keith handed him.

“Yeah?”

“Uh, I was wondering if uh…” Keith awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh, would you wanna get dinner with me sometime?” Keith looked up hopefully at Lance.

Lance’s face was expressionless for a second. Then suddenly his face lit up and he smiled. “Yeah! That sounds great!”

Keith’s stomach did some more backflips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Awesome.”

Lance finished ringing up Keith’s purchase. The receipt printed out but before Keith could take it Lance yanked it away. He grabbed a nearby pen and scribbled something quickly on it.

“Here’s your receipt. And my number!” Lance exclaimed.

“Okay cool. I’ll text you soon!”

“Sounds perfect,” Lance beamed.

“It’s a date,” Keith gushed. He was still in awe of finally being able to land a date with the cute lush cashier. Keith walked out of the store with a new face mask and better yet a phone number and a date with a cute boy. And it wasn’t even noon yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhhg I might add another chapter or snippet to this later on if anyone’s interested 🤔


End file.
